Abstract
Electrical contacts of the width of only one atom can be realized by the break-junction technique. The conductance decreases stepwise due to structural reconfigurations when tearing a nano-bridge in the few-atom range. Transport is described by an ensemble of channels with possibly quite high transmission probabilities. For a single break-junction the last one-atom contact consists of a material-specific channel ensemble, determined by the chemical valance as verified for quite a number of metals. d-electrons in half-metals and spin-effects in magnetic materials will complicate this simple model. Break-junctions also provide ideal contacts to investigate transport through freely suspended clusters or molecules like DNA.
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